# Audio problems...mp3 crackling sounds

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/audio-problems-mp3-crackling-sounds/454197>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 25, 2008, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/audio-problems-mp3-crackling-sounds/454197 "2008-06-25T16:43:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Rael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rael)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2008, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/audio-problems-mp3-crackling-sounds/454197/1 "2008-06-25T16:43:49Z")

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I have a new laptop, it is an acer aspire running windows vista. I am having 2 audio problems. mainly when I am playing mp3s there are crackling sounds, sounds like what you would hear if you were listening through a speaker with a short in the wire. I tried other mp3 programs(media monkey and winamp) and it happens in both. however I have dual boot with ubuntu, if I boot up ubuntu I have no problems with playing mp3s at all.

One other thing, if I am in a browser and have a flash video paused and loading, it “hijacks” the audio driver and I cannot play mp3s or other get sound when playing a video file like avi or wmv. while loading the flash video. this happens in both vista and ubuntu. This was not a problem when I had XP. It is a realtek card and the latest audio drivers and vista service pack 1 have already been installed.

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**Author:** ![Rael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rael)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/audio-problems-mp3-crackling-sounds/454197/2 "2008-06-27T03:21:43Z")

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bump

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**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/audio-problems-mp3-crackling-sounds/454197/3 "2008-06-27T03:34:34Z")

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Got a network?  
[Microsoft responds to Vista network performance issue](http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=724)

> [@](#):
>
> “The connection between media playback and networking is not immediately obvious. But as you know, the drivers involved in both activities run at extremely high priority. As a result, the network driver can cause media playback to degrade. This shows up to the user as things like popping and crackling during audio playback. Users generally hate this, hence the trade off.”

This was reported back in 2007, and I’m mostly a Mac user, so that’s about all I got.